


Sevenfold Eclipse

by cyclical



Series: Heavenly Bodies [2]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Science Fiction, Assassins & Hitmen, Genre-Typical Violence, IN SPACE!, M/M, Mental Instability, Psychosis, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Space Opera
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:35:06
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28538934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyclical/pseuds/cyclical
Summary: Now that Kunimi could operate with the full extent of his license to kill, there was almost nothing he couldn’t get his hands on, barring the more official rides to and from stations. He snuck onto cargo holds or piloted himself—just a cruiser chipped under Federation nav—which was in itself a little hysterical considering he worked without the typical grace of his commander, but Kunimi’s commander was dead, and he had a mission to fulfill.Kageyama Tobio, now the Sixth Star of Lord Kozume’s retinue, would not be an easy man to find.
Relationships: Kageyama Tobio/Kunimi Akira
Series: Heavenly Bodies [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2090799
Comments: 3
Kudos: 14





	Sevenfold Eclipse

**Author's Note:**

> **warnings:**  
>  \+ genre-typical violence  
> \+ psychosis / unreliable narrator / mental instability  
> \+ hallucinations  
> \+ mild depiction of gore  
> \+ sex

##  **I. The Dream Foxes**

Kageyama’s bomb had tore Oikawa in two, and left a fist-sized cavity in Iwaizumi’s chest, and then something—some _one_ else in their stream had triggered core shut-down, which meant that the entire population of Blue Castle had asphyxiated on their own implants as the recyclers had gone cold, and the oxygen ran out.

Kunimi survived, but barely. The vessel he ran missions in was still docked on the 5th Bay with its tank half full. There was one thing that Kageyama Tobio had not touched in all of Seijoh, and Kunimi clung to it like a tether. It was unattractive, he knew, to seek comfort in the arbitrary, but betrayal soured his mouth and his bloody hands and he shook with it. Anger struck in his chest like a bonfire, turned his bones into kindling, his hair into flame.

Turned him into some bright, white star.

Kunimi was out of cash and out of contacts by the first solar turn. Fortunately for him this was a fixable issue. Now that he could operate with the full extent of his license to kill, there was almost nothing he couldn’t get his hands on, barring the more official rides to and from stations. He snuck onto cargo holds or piloted himself—just a double-seated cruiser still chipped under Federation nav—which was in itself a little hysterical considering he worked without the typical grace of his commander, but Kunimi’s commander was dead, and he had a mission to fulfill.

Kageyama Tobio, now the Sixth Star of Lord Kozume’s retinue, would not be an easy man to find.

Kunimi mulled over his options. He’d been intel gathering for the better part of two myriad, and had a lead on some Hollow activity, but nothing on Kageyama; he seemed to have sidestepped the grid after taking out Silver Castle. There was chatter from the Wave Sectors, something about Inari foxes resurfacing from their dream orbits, and possibly rejoining the Stars, but they were mirrors as bald-faced as they came, and Kita Shinsuke was rumored to be one of the immortal Ten Tails rebirthed, meaning that it would be next to impossible to hunt him down alone, and all for a lead on Inari movement that might not even be useful to Kunimi in the first place.

So he turned himself back into Federation hands. They checked him over wordlessly and put his position back up on the boards; half an hour later he was pinned by some cadet. “The premiere first of the war-class directive Violet Palace seeks audience with you,” they said, looking a little too young and wild-eyed for active service. “The General awaits your presence in E-44.”

 _Ushijima?_ Kunimi thought, even as he rooted around in his pocket for station tip—a handful of merit coins later and the kid took off down the hall like someone had lit a fire under their ass. He leaned a little against the doorframe, thinking, still. Perils were high-demand as warmaker auxiliaries, especially one stamped with a Lieutenant’s stars, but Kunimi didn’t think he’d be taken in so quickly. At least, not within a day of returning to Federation custody. “Wonder what that’s about.”

Kunimi dressed in peril blacks for the meeting—he didn’t have any other uniform sets available regardless—with its high and comforting collar, his left sleeve red, tall boots, and black gloves. His shoes clicked down the shipway bridge.

Ushijima was a tall man—broad in the shoulders—with unsmiling eyes and a severe mouth, though sitting, none of his bulk was reduced in the face of it. His second, Tendou Satori juddered in a moment later, still in official uniform, fitted in dark purple like a flower. Ushijima glanced briefly his way, and then gestured to the seat across from them at the table. “At ease, peril.”

“Sir,” Kunimi said, and sat.

Ushijima slid a folder in his direction. It was a black manila dossier, stamped with the signet of the Violet Castle across its back. The wings, gold embossed, rose like cues of flame. There was another wax coin keeping the envelope shut, which Kunimi broke without hesitation. It was rare to be issued hardcopy dossiers these days, but Violet had always been a cut above the rest—run with tighter protocol but more privilege. 

Kunimi scanned the document. It did not take very long. The reassignment report was hardly half a page in length. He paused at the bottom. Reread again from the top. Turned it over to check if the back was empty. “Is this it? You have to be kidding me.”

Ushijima’s hands were folded together on the tabletop. “Our situation is more…dire than the Council has let on in the past. We’ve been consolidating our numbers, but it’s not enough. As a senior directive, the brunt of work has fallen to us.”

Kunimi heard Oikawa’s voice in his head then, on that last disastrous meeting with White Castle. _You want to take out all the Hands of Hollow Stars with_ ** _perils?_**

“Your foremost assignment is reserved for eliminating the threat of the Lord Kozume and his walkers,” Ushijima said. “The Council is afraid that there will be uprisings soon. We have reliable intel that they’ve been on the move since their last attack.”

Kunimi sat back in his chair, thoughtful. He was fairly sure he had that same intel too. “And you trust me to get the job done?” he asked.

“You came highly recommended by your superiors,” Ushijima said. At Kunimi’s hesitation, rapped two knuckles lightly against the table. “At any rate, it’s like any of your other missions. If you don’t feel the cost worth it, feel free to reject the offer.”

Kunimi looked down at the file again. They wanted him to eliminate both the Second and Third stars in one go. He wasn’t sure if it was possible, one man against two ghouls, but system stability really must be in danger if they’re this short staffed.

“What resources would I be provided?”

“All of Violet Palace.”

Kunimi’s eyebrows went up, surprised. He would never hunt down Kageyama on his own, but it was entirely possible with Federation backing. “Done,” he said. He reached into his jacket for his signet marker, marked up the papers. “You have me.”

It didn’t even take clearing the Quartz Bow. A subship of Violet Palace was docked on a station planetside for refuel while Kunimi busied himself chasing some new lead, slouched in the black bar of a speakeasy when Kageyama came in through the door.

He arrived alone, dressed in something appropriately scandalous, and leaned up against the far wall to nurse his drink while half the bar made eyes at him. He waited maybe ten minutes before another man went over. He was tall, about as tall as Kunimi and Kageyama both, wearing a thousand earrings and a shirt with no sleeves, built in a way that suggested hard labor, and walked with the gait of someone carrying at least four weapons on his immediate person. Kunimi’s hand tightened around his glass.

Kageyama’s eyes flicked listlessly up to his. He let the man take the drink out of his hand and crowd him up a little against the wall. Tobio slouched in a way that took inches off his height, meaning he was in pain. Even across the bar, Kunimi could see his haggard expression, dark circles beneath his eyes like someone had punched him twice in the face, one shiner for each.

Kunimi looked away. Kageyama always knew how to make it hurt. It had been like that in Blue Castle too, that way Tobio could strip him so bare, down to the naked flesh, with just one look. Those pitiable, wretched eyes. That pathetic face, too thin to be beautiful, but too lovely to invite sympathy. Needless to say, Oikawa’s orders for execution had originally gone uncontested.

The man put his arm around Kageyama, and led him away. Kunimi counted to twenty, then followed, slipping unnoticed into the row of lifts through the back, and up the stairs to the third floor rooms. There was high-ranking residence here, difficult to get into, but good for—Kunimi’s mind ground to an uncomfortable halt around this point, thinking Kageyama…with anyone else—business transactions. Kunimi supposed he shouldn’t begrudge Tobio for thinking of this particular move first. Sucking dick was typically a good source for information, and fast.

Also killing people was much easier when they had their pants around their ankles.

He checked his lenspiece for bodies. The grounds were clear. The stream flowed even and undisrupted, except for the tussore of Kunimi and another consciousness that he suspected was Kageyama’s contact. Tobio himself was not present.

Kunimi rolled his eyes. _Walkers_.

The two were at the end of the hall. Kunimi unholstered his gun. He coursed down the walkway. Tried to calm his heart, which retched and boiled inside him like a knife, told himself that Kageyama was no idiot even in the height of his madness, but if Kunimi had a clean shot, he would kill him. Tonight, in a nameless bar at the center of Quartz Bow, he would dig his love a new grave.

Kageyama lay prone atop the bedcovers. He was bloodless, unmoving, and pale. Sweat stung to his temples, and a cotton bit wedged between his teeth. Kunimi, watching him from above in his alcove of a gravity vent, frowned.

“I’d put the gun down if I were you, Kourai-kun,” the man said. His voice wasn’t even strained, and he was siphoning like a leech. “You’ll hurt ‘im.”

A white haired kid stood in the doorway, flanked by another of similar height. They were dressed for action: hard boots, dark clothes, bodies turned into techstuff trellis. The shorter one dropped his weapon when he saw what was happening: the blood and tubes and bandages. “Kageyama,” he breathed, expression pinching hard, like it hurt. He crossed the room in a series of big steps, trailed reluctantly by his partner. “Atsumu how could you?”

At least Atsumu had the decency to look uncomfortable. “Shouyou, you shouldn’t be here,” he said, mouth twisted. Kunimi noticed that he didn’t leave Kageyama’s side. “Violet Palace is crawling the place. They’ll catch you.”

“We’re out of their range,” Hoshiumi said dismissively. Kunimi snorted under his breath. “And anyway they can’t touch us even if they wanted to.”

Kunimi thumbed the call button of his Palace comm. He wouldn’t be able to bring both Stars in, despite his mission rep, but Kageyama was so close, just a handspan out of reach.

Hinata interrupted. “Why is he here, Atsumu?”

Atsumu was unimpressed. He slid off the bed—off Kageyama’s prone and spittle-flicked form. “I don’t sell secrets, Shouyou.” At Hinata’s incredulous look, laughed. “What else is it that you need to hear? That you should take better care of your things if you don’t want to lose them?”

Hinata faced twisted ugly. “You little—”

Hoshiumi held him back with an arm across the chest. “Cease,” he murmured. He was already uncuffing his sleeves and shaking out his batons. “Let me take care of this one.” He unfolded his weapons, already crackling with electricity: white around his metal exoskeleton, a harness of black metal that were belted to his body like bones, and at the corners of his eyes, which bore the same milkiness as cataracts.

Kunimi stopped at this, startled, almost. _The Second Star was blind?_

Hoshiumi said: “Step aside then, Miya.”

Atsumu refused. “No.”

“I said,” Hoshiumi continued, voice low. He spit the name like shit. “Step. Aside. _Miya._ ”

Kunimi took his hand off his comm.

“He’s safer with us. Kozume can’t do anything for him right now.”

Hinata snapped. “And yet he survives under that same Lord’s favor.”

Atsumu looked faintly amused. “Yes, I heard,” he said. “The ATL you put out for him was quite impressive.”

Hinata’s hands stretched and fisted. There was a knock on the door. Everyone in the room, save the Inari—and Kunimi was certain now that the Miya was a fox, who else could siphon and argue with a Star at the same time?—tensed. “Jus’ Osamu,” Atsumu said. Hinata’s eyes narrowed, but put two fingers to the keypad.

The door slid open and two men came in, one of whom Kunimi recognized. Suna Rintaro had an onyx throat lock, approximately twenty new piercings, and an obelisk-form gun strapped to his back. Kunimi knew that thing weighed as much as a fucking tree, and just as tall, but under Suna’s care, didn’t so much as shackle as it did glide. The supple palm indeed.

Sunarin’s partner was the spitting image of his twin, just that his eyes were so insanely fucked up that Kunimi could see all twelve sub levels of Inari dream orbit in them alone, which unsettled him to the nth degree. The gray was cut like a jewel, chroming brilliantly beneath the lights in a veritable rainbow of colors, reminiscent of smoke and lead. Miya Osamu had none of the scars that his brother did though, at least not on the face where Kunimi could see, and somehow looked more sane than Atsumu just standing there with an inactive gammablade slid crosswise in his belt.

The silver twin’s expression was unreadable, “Violet Palace are here. We have to go,” he said. He eyed the two others with no little caution. “Hinata,” he nodded respectfully. “Hoshiumi. Here for your little bird?”

Kunimi worried his lip. Just his luck he was chasing dead-end leads before landing himself in a room full of enemies. The Stars’ prowess in battle was second only to their prowess in the stream, whose drops in duo ran missions more dangerous than most of the Federation’s suicidal maneuvers, who were as formidable a match as Kunimi was in the murder business. Yes, these two were as mad as they came. He didn’t have room to consider any more.

“We can’t move him yet, ‘Samu,” Atsumu said, and did sound bitter about the admission. “I’m nowhere near done with him.”

“Just cut the transfer, Miya,” Hoshiumi said. “The Lord Kozume will—

“The Lord this, the Lord that,” Atsumu said. He looked both parts angry and exhausted. Two fingers were still touched to the inside of Kageyama’s wrist, either keeping an eye on his vitals or something else entirely. “Why won’t you come to terms with the fact that there might finally be something out of your fucking reach? You can’t kill his ghosts. You are _walkers._ All you ever do, and all you have ever done, is keep company of the dead.”

Kunimi’s head ached, overwhelmed from shuffling so many variables. He didn’t know what the right call was. Both seemed to compromise Kageyama’s safety.

“Your souls and theirs walk alongside each other in the stream, but your Sixth will not survive,” he promised. “He is weak, and his haunt overflows.”

Hinata was still. It was strange to see the look on his body, that unblinking face.

“You have to let him go,” Atsumu said. “He belongs already to another.”

But Hinata was stubborn, even if he wouldn’t speak.

 _“Let go,”_ he repeated. “Or you will be dragged.”

The Hollow Stars were as formidable an opponent as legend suggested. It was only out of sheer Palace numbers were they forced to back off, though not without their prizes. Suna took both twins with him when he brought the ceiling down on all their heads, but it was a Palace cruiser that waited for the Hollows; Kunimi locked eyes with Ohiro when he slung Kageyama’s body over his shoulder and carted him away in the confusion. Hoshiumi was fighting with a sort of violent starvation that Kunimi had never seen before, not up close in such disadvantageous numbers, but he was only one of two in a sea of Violet faces, and he couldn’t get away in time.

The soldiers dogpiled Hinata. He was a fire-maker, though of what capacity the Federation didn’t know, but if his hands were bound, they could spare casualties. He must have been weakened from another fight because he struggled to throw even one of them off, and Hoshiumi had fallen back from retrieval to flank his partner instead, smashing skulls to keep them clear.

Kunimi was about to fucking book it when Atsumu felled him like a tree. He put a foot on his stomach to keep him down. This close, Atsumu’s eyes shifted color like a malform, black and blue and green and white; he leaned in so close his lips brushed Kunimi’s ear—leaned in and said: “Send Kozume my regards.”

Kunimi spit, or tried to. One of Atsumu’s gloved hands clamped down on his nose and mouth, pinned him there on the floor, writhing pathetically, snarling wild like a dog. It was driving air from his lungs, but it was some last ditch effort against capture or nothing, but slipping Atsumu’s noose was proving itself impossible. Kunimi’s vision buckled with black as he jerked his head another artless time—far enough to see Hoshiumi working at Hinata’s cuffs from across the room—before the second hand around Kunimi’s throat tightened like a vice as his limbs lost touch and the world spun on the single coin of Atsumu’s voice, directed up to his brother, saying: “—too late—with Tobio, and here, I know—”

Kunimi had dreamed of it before. Dreamed of it asleep, dreamed of it awake, and in his arms was the phantom weight of Iwaizumi heavy and red all over. It had chilled Kunimi to see that look in his eyes, a kind of peace, and the place beyond. Iwaizumi’s chest was flecked with gore, and he bled like a fucking pig, but his commander had looked from Oikawa’s cold face to Kunimi’s and put a big hand to his head—dripped blood all over his cheek—as understanding undid the sinews of his raw and weeping heart.

Iwaizumi said: “You didn’t have to do that,” like it meant anything. His body was the last real thing Kunimi ever touched in Blue Castle. There had been a solidness to him, a heat, a weight. Iwaizumi burdened him.

There was no response, so he’d tried again. “Akira,” he said, his mouth a vision of blood. “Can you hear me?”

Kunimi had to look away. “Yes.”

Iwaizumi asked again: “Are you hurt?”

His throat closed. “No.”

Iwaizumi’s head turned a little to the side. “I’m glad.” He’d coughed. His vision thinned.

“No,” Kunimi said, again. _Get up soldier._ ** _Get up._** “Don’t leave me,” he’d said. “I can’t be the last one,” his voice had cracked like a child’s, but he was, then, in a place beyond shame. “I can’t. Where will I go? What am I supposed to do?” _Please, don’t make me carry all your ghosts._

Iwaizumi’s hand slid in five red lines down his cheek. “You live,” he’d said. And Kunimi had shook his head, in response, _no_ , but by then Iwaizumi had looked up and away into some unfathomable distance, limp in his arms like a stillborn child, and saw no more.

Kunimi woke to the sound of a bitten scream.

Something charged across the cabin—electric cabling, autonomous, evolving code, and he jerked up off the cot he was lying on, incoherent, head swimming, and yelled: _“Stop!”_

He recognized that sound. Kunimi staggered to his feet, ripping the IV line out of his arm without registering the pain, and nearly tripped over Hoshiumi on the cruiser floor.Hinata was on his knees too, vomiting directly into the waste chute. He was slumped forward, forehead against the wall, with Federation cuffs digging hard into the fine bones of his wrists. They stretched his arms out behind him, the metal littered with pockmarks.

“No, no—no. You’ll kill him,” Kunimi rasped. These cuffs needed a Federation override, coded by clearance level rather than individual. Kunimi could barely see what he was doing—his eyes still swollen from whatever Atsumu hit him with—but managed to find the scanner and push his thumb up against it alright, and sighed a little with relief when the compression screws started coming loose. The more Hinata struggled, the tighter they would’ve gotten, shattering his bones into so many pieces he’d probably need the leftover flesh amputated.

Next came the electroshock. Kunimi fumbled with the razorbits, the inside of the cuffs slick with Hinata’s blood, before he’d peeled them off entirely and kicked them to the side. Kunimi was distantly aware of Hinata’s pathetic gurgling—he winced in sympathy, remembering his last stint in them back during his cadet days in Black Water—and the way Hinata slumped back into Hoshiumi’s hold. The Second Star lifted his sleeve and wiped gently at the spit on Hinata’s chin.

Seeing Hinata settled, Kunimi ignored the reluctant attempts Hoshiumi made at starting thanks, too busy holding his hair back with one hand as he took Hinata’s place in front of the waste chute, already contemplating the merits of ritual suicide despite Kindaichi’s absence before he leaned forward, head pounding like two bitches and a bucket of wirebits were making a mess of his osseous insides, and threw up.

“The Miya twins work in the dream business,” Hinata later said around a mouthful of lunch. “They’re aviatrii and magnates at large, but obviously not illegal enough to interest the Federation,” he sucked his chopsticks into his mouth, chewed on the next words. “I doubt that you would’ve run into them anyway.”

Kunimi looked to, and then away from Hinata. He’d recovered fairly quick, all things considered, but there was a wanness to him still. Hoshiumi, the Second Star, had his sightless eyes pinned hard to Kunimi’s face. They unnerved him: framed as they were by his white lashes, and the rest of his hair that curled around his ears. Every time he moved, the circuitboard exoskeleton he wore jangled loudly, almost as if to remind everyone within earshot just how dangerous he was. _A Lightning master,_ Kunimi mused. _How curious._

Hinata put his bento away. “Is there a reason you’re asking?” he asked, leaning weight onto his elbows. For a fast cruiser, the Hollow ship was luxuriously outfitted with clean tables and several extra chairs. The three of them were meant to take meals here on their way to audience with the Lord.

Kunimi sat stiffly in his seat. “I trained for eight years with Suna Rintaro,” he said.

Hinata didn’t seem surprised by the information. He hummed. “And you’re…worried about him?”

“I don’t understand why he defected, is all.”

That amused Hinata. His mouth quirked—petty or pretty, Kunimi had yet to decide. “Aren’t you too?”

“Aren’t I what?”

Hinata leaned back a little. His shoulder brushed Hoshiumi’s. “Defecting.”

They looked at each other for a while: sharing air. And here was someone who understood him without question. Something fisted hard in Kunimi’s chest. He tossed his gaze away, out the window. He was unsettled by the frankness of Hinata’s stare, that knowing, open face. “I haven’t decided yet,” he said.

Hinata was unashamed. “Don’t take too long,” he said, and there might have been pity in the words still. “Your precious Tobio might die yet.”

If the stories that colored Kozume’s reputation weren’t unsettling enough, one look at the Hollow Lord would more than make up for the difference. There was something unnatural about his face and his voice and the way he moved, though it wasn’t his stature that surprised Kunimi, or his alien dress, or the way he seemed to sense his approach before it had been announced. Kenma rose from his perch without sound. “Kunimi Akira,” he said, mouth curling. “I have been waiting for you.”

It was that, in his face were two great recesses that saw him bare but without judgment, like a divine skull, a god of gods. As Kunimi drew close at the top of the daised platform, Kunimi saw for the first time that the great hunter of the galaxy _had no eyes._

Kunimi’s mouth moved thoughtlessly. “Me?” he asked. His whole body felt numb and weightless. The rest of the world paled when Kenma moved through it. “Why?”

Kenma tucked his hands into his sleeves. “Because my children are dying,” he said simply. “And because the life you just sold off was not cheap.”

“Tobio’s, you mean.”

Kenma’s head cocked. “Yes,” he said quietly. He seemed lost in thought. “Tobio’s, I mean.”

He was silent again. Kunimi tried not to twitch; it felt like the skin was being flayed from his bones just by virtue of Kenma’s presence alone.

Then: “Come,” Kenma said, turning slightly towards the door. “We meet with the Fourth Star now.”

Kunimi followed him from one viewing platform to another. These chambers were only minimally less utilitarian and about equally as sparse as the rest of the ship in terms of decor. Kozume, he found, was nearly a head shorter than him, but there was something about straying too close that seemed a discomfiting prospect. Kunimi did not have to follow for too long, thankfully.

The Fourth Star, where he had been sitting with a tablet in the hall adjacent, rose to meet them. He’d ditched the glasses and those unflattering slate-gray slacks since Kunimi had seen him last on a decimated warmaker, both of which his handsomeness suffered only slightly for. He dressed now in a resplendent draping of silver and blue, and had his hair pulled back into a series of interlocking braids, though he still affected gloves, like Kunimi, the singular souvenir of his old titles in Silver Castle by force of habit or otherwise. Either way, Akaashi Keiji was not an easy face to forget—beautiful in the starched collars of Federation command, and just as beautiful in walker robes; he was no more diminished in the halo of Kenma’s presence than he was in Bokuto’s.

“Lieutenant,” Akaashi said, bowing a little. He carried himself no different than he did when they’d last met, but Kunimi couldn’t look at Akaashi without seeing his lopped head among Silver Castle remains.

Kunimi said: “I saw your body.”

Quietly, “So you did.”

He fought to keep his fists from clenching. “I saw Bokuto’s too.”

Akaashi had no flinch to hide. He didn’t bother to play Kunimi’s games either—the one person a peril couldn’t talk their way around. “I’m sorry you could not save them, Kunimi,” he said softly. And he did look sorry. That’s what stung the most. “Bokuto’s extraction was my main priority.”

Kunimi wanted to laugh, but didn’t have enough sympathy for it. “Yes,” he said. “I understand.”

It would’ve been a long mission for anyone. Climbing warmaker ranks was as touch-and-go as it came, and command was no guarantee for anyone, even as a loyalist with a stream partner; it would’ve taken a genius to have fooled the entire Council and then some.

Akaashi was not a loud addition to their party, and seemed unperturbed by Kunimi’s bad temper. He fell in by Kenma’s shoulder. “I spoke with Hinata earlier,” he said. “You are willing to help us retrieve the Sixth?”

Kunimi didn’t know what to make of the information. He was glad not to hear Kageyama’s name aloud though. “It depends what else you’d ask of me,” he said. Glanced at Akaashi out of the corner of his eye. “I can’t imagine your cooperation comes without cost.”

“The Lord would ask for your loyalty,” he said. Added, amused: “But we would not have it under false pretenses, Lieutenant. You are free to leave if you wish.”

It hung unspoken between them that Kunimi would rather not have Kageyama in Federation custody—though what he would’ve done had he been successful detaching Tobio from Hollow auspices was unclear, he certainly was not in the mood for— _sharing._ But heading back to the system meant walker retaliation, and going AWOL meant he would lose support on all fronts. Kunimi was no idiot, and not in the habit of shooting himself in the foot, but Kageyama did say it best: Kunimi was just so stupid about him sometimes.

“This contract is binding?”

“It would be a blood oath, yes,” Akaashi said. He hung back as Kunimi peered incuriously into the labs. It was dark, and though he knew the recyclers were running, the air felt stale. Kunimi wasn’t sure what drew his eye to the bench in the far corner and that patch of stone flooring underneath, but he took an involuntary step forward anyway, breath caught like a stone in his throat.

The lights flickered on. Kunimi crossed the room in three steps, and it was like walking his way through a dream. His head pounded, and he had to brace his hands on the counter to keep from tipping sideways. He’d just seen the boy, _he’d just seen him,_ how was it possible that Kageyama could still…?

“This was his?” He didn’t know why he asked, he just felt like he had to say something to break the silence. Kunimi could tell how unwell Tobio was by the way he’d arranged the scrap metal alone. Kageyama was always tidy to a fault.

“Yes,” Kenma said. “He’s particular about his work. We tend to leave his things alone.”

Something was squeezing the life right out of Kunimi’s heart—choking it. He said: “You’re kind to him.” He didn’t look up from the table. His hands curled into fists. “Is it because he does your killings for you?”

Kenma was unmoved. He stood next to Kunimi by the lab bench, small enough to look down upon. “Kageyama asked me the same question when he arrived, you know,” he said. “You two are very similar.”

“And what did you say to him?” Kunimi said. “That it was the choice between becoming a Hollow or being tossed out the airlock? He’s always been wretched, Kozume, what difference does it make if that makes you kind or makes you cruel?”

“He would not be less even if we pitied him,” Kenma said.

He laughed. Kunimi hated that word. “Wouldn’t he? Tobio’s strong,” he said. “He didn’t need it anyway.”

Akaashi said: “He was alone, Kunimi.”

Kunimi shook his head. “Tobio’s strong,” he repeated. He didn’t know how to make them understand.

“Being strong and not being alone have nothing to do with each other,” Kenma said, and the words caught him by the painful ear. His throat clamped shut. Made him hurt. “And pity is not the absolute for weakness. Do not mistake this either.”

Kunimi looked up at Kenma, looked into the hollowed mouths of his skull, into that absence which had so scared him in the past. His body was thin and his face unlined, but in voice belied his atavism, of an age which was unfathomable, pitless, and deep. Here was a soul so wide and large that Kunimi could drown in it. Here was a heart that knew house and no house, that walked on the other side of death and returned with benediction. Here was a knower and a maker—a God in the flesh.

And it scared Kunimi like nothing else.

There was a noise outside. The sound of something falling. Akaashi was the first one, surprisingly enough, to react. He was out the door before Kunimi realized what was happening.

“ _Oh_ —Bokuto, didn’t I tell you not to get up on your own?” His voice faded beneath another and the sound of the door. Kunimi followed Kenma out of it. “Tsukishima, why didn’t you stop him?”

A voice filtered through the intercom. “I tried,” he said. “He is persistent.”

“You could’ve locked the door,” Akaashi said. Bokuto slipped through his fingers to the floor, and Akaashi, who refused to let him go, slipped with him. His robes billowed with the air he trapped underneath. “Or you could’ve called me—Hoshiumi, anyone.”

Bokuto put his head down on Akaashi’s shoulder. From where Kunimi was standing, Akaashi’s back was to him, but he could see the way Bokuto fisted his hands in the back of his shirt.

Tsukishima said: “He wanted to see you.”

Akaashi clicked his tongue, aggravated. “He shouldn’t be out of bed,” he argued. “Another hour and I would’ve been back.”

“He insisted.”

“You’re the shipmind,” Akaashi snapped. “ _Insist back.”_

Bokuto moaned. It shut both of them up quick. “Don’t be mad, Keiji,” he said. His voice was thin and flawed, pocked with insecurity. “Please don’t be mad, I got scared and made Tsukki let me out because I thought you weren’t coming back.”

“Hush, it’s alright,” Akaashi said, and stroked his hair. It felt perverse to witness, to see a child’s face in the body of a man’s. Kunimi had only ever known Bokuto as Silver Castle’s commander, after all. “You’re sick right now, dear, so you should stay in bed instead of coming to look for me.”

There were bandages swathing Bokuto’s hands, his neck, his back. He was barefoot, and a trail of bloodied footprints drifted back down the hallway in the direction from which he so came. “I don’t want you to leave me.”

“There’s no way to exit a ship in white space,” Akaashi said. “I couldn’t leave if I tried.”

Bokuto wept despite it. “But I woke up and you were gone,” he said. “The bed was cold. I thought you died for real this time. Then I got scared—I got scared—”

“I’m sorry for you to have been alone,” Akaashi said. His lashes fluttered dark and long like crescents in the light. “But I’ll always come back for you, Bokuto. Try to remember that, if nothing else.”

##  **II. Black Water**

Black Water was a land of towers. All walls and no windows—just black marble and silver gouting. Kunimi hadn’t been back in near five solar, but it still made him shudder, dropping into view; time had not changed any of it since.

Tsukishima slowed on the descent, enough time for Kunimi to count transport androids and soldiers as they hurried past on the hangar bay. It was practiced, but not easy, to scrounge for what courage he had leftover, and slip into its exhaled coolness. He blamed his nerves on Black Water dress code, thinking that his titles wouldn’t be so starkly visible otherwise, but it really was a terrible habit to want back into the shadows the minute he came up for air.

His boots clicked on the descent. Touching feet to the bay floor ran a shudder through his whole body. Three doors in, and no one stopped him. The tails of his peril blacks snapped at his heels, and his rank sleeve—the titular red—seemed to glow bloody murder all down his left side.

Kunimi checked the containment levels one at a time—all those cryobeds and electro-cots, the great tubes of bubbling things, and grates that had long since rusted over with blood, but only showed red around the seams.

If Kageyama was not in general custody, then he would be in solitary confinement. It was not hard to find him after that, though witnessing it in truth inspired some kind of roaring in his ears. Kunimi’s body moved on pins and needles across the room. “What the hell?” he muttered. Then louder: “Tsukishima, are you seeing this?”

Shipminds were computers, and computers couldn’t sigh, but it seemed like Tsukishima did, just then. “Yes,” he said, a little painfully. They had both slowed to a stop. “I am.”

Kunimi craned his neck upwards towards Kageyama’s face. He spread his hands against the glass, which was thick and cool to the touch. “Is he alive?”

The person in question was floating in a cylindrical aquarium, submerged in something too pale to pass for water. Kageyama’s eyes were closed, and his hair drifted a little, palms turned outwards at his side. Two lines connected him to the machine itself: a needle in the neck, and another in the crook of his arm. He was entirely naked, but not in any erotic fashion, and Kunimi could see that he was thinner than when they last met. The affected glow of the stasis drifter made his body look frail, and very peaceful. If it weren’t for Tsukishima in his ear, Kunimi might have thought him long dead.

“I am getting vitals,” Tsukishima said. “A little low, but alright.”

“Is he injured?” he asked. It was rare for the higher-ups to sign off on things like this. Induced preservation was expensive to maintain, and typically drained more resources than it returned.

“Inconclusive,” was the reply. A pause, then hedged. “Perhaps psychotic relapse.” Before Kunimi could express his distaste, said: “I’m sending the Second and Third to you now.” And in distinctly un-Tsukishima-like fashion, added: “Be careful, Kunimi. I don’t think I need to impress upon you how dangerous this facility is.”

Kunimi looked away from Kageyama. “No,” he said, and pushed at the heartbeat of Black Water, so filled with its memories of sourness and hunger. “You don’t.”

Kunimi had one hazy eye attending to the door, and Tsukishima an entire network, but it was still a surprise—those first few gunshots that shattered the room. He ducked on instinct. Cover was minimal, but the lighting was poor, which worked in his favor. Kunimi slid a pistol from his holster, tugging off the glove on his trigger hand as he counted heads from his hiding place. _Twelve._

“What’s going on?” Kunimi asked, fitting an explosive round into his gun. “Do you have visual?”

Tsukishima told him to look out the window.

Kunimi did. The shuddering bulk of Violet Palace was leaking soldiers all over Black Water, never mind the usual clearance nets. He swore, and, still swearing, rose to fight. “How the hell did they sneak up on us?” he snapped. Kunimi wasn’t much in crowd combat, but he had to defend, and assumed correctly that he was the only one with a license to kill. He snagged three headshots and change. “Cloaking tech or what? Someone alert them to Hollow movements? Because I sure as hell didn’t.”

Tsukishima ignored him. “The Stars are about at your location.”

Heat flooded the open door before Kunimi could reply.

“We’re here!” Hinata shouted, only a little out of breath. He’d since worked up a sweat in the hallway. Hoshiumi, who appeared next, seemed slightly singed around the corners. Hinata speared one of the men at his feet almost absently. He gurgled and dropped his knife, dead. “Is this your doing again, Kunimi?” he asked.

Kunimi was bleeding from a cut to the temple. “No,” he said, irascible, wiping sweat out of his eyes. “I don’t care to fight a war on two fronts, Third. Let’s get moving.”

Hoshiumi measured Kunimi up for size. It wasn’t like they had the time, but he did it anyway. Turned to his partner, nodded. “I’ll take perimeter,” Hinata said. “And hurry the extraction.”

Kunimi glanced at him, and then Hoshiumi. “I can’t get him out on my own,” he said. That was as much concession he gave. Hoshiumi tapped his ear agreeably and followed.

They were in the middle of draining the tank when the next explosion hit. The room shuddered and rumbled. Half the lights cut out. Kunimi, used to working in darkness, continued to strip off his jacket and hand it to Hoshiumi. “For him,” he said, and dove for the biometrics.

“Movement from Palace ships,” Tsukishima said. “I’m bringing ours around before they cut us off.”

The system took Kunimi’s override. He boosted himself up onto the engineer’s platform to receive Kageyama as the glass retracted back into the floor, grunting as Kageyama slumped against his chest; their builds were similar, but it was awkward to maneuver his dead weight. Kunimi ripped the lines from his skin as Hoshiumi made good on the bundling promise.

Something heavy landed on the floor above them. “Third!” Kunimi yelled, staggering as the room shuddered underfoot. The lights were telescoping wildly, and the corridor so packed with bodies he couldn’t see Hinata anymore. “Third, we have to go!”

Hoshiumi had fitted an arm around Kageyama’s waist—he certainly was stronger than he looked—and started dragging him towards the window.

“Nearly there,” Tsukishima said.

Their pod was a line of lithe black among the Palace subsidiaries. “Confirming visual,” Kunimi said. Quieter, to Hoshiumi: “I can take him for now.”

He stood back with Kageyama as Hoshiumi then slid his batons out, and locked their bodies in place. It took a good hammering to make the first crack, but easy work afterwards. Hoshiumi cleaned out the sill which was seamed the floor. There was still no sign of Hinata. Tsukishima pulled their ship up, impossibly tight, to the open wall. The air which bubbled Black Water screamed with fighting. The atmosphere was building in heat and pressure. “Take him!” Kunimi yelled, fighting to be heard over the noise. The side door opened for entry. “I’ll look for Hinata!”

Hoshiumi fixed him with that stare again—harsh, indecipherable—but he was a man of mission, and only glanced a fist off Kunimi’s chest. _Go,_ it said.

Hoshiumi knew exactly what Kunimi was asking of him.

Kunimi turned on his heel and ran. It was a bloody rainfall in the hallway. Bodies in piles, haphazard battle lines. The sweetness of burning. And in the middle of the darkness, Hinata was lit like a bonfire.

He fought loud, and struggled hard when Kunimi’s hand clamped down on his arm. It took him too long to recognize who it was, but Kunimi didn’t need him to—adrenaline thundered in his ears, and that sickness of brushing shoulders with death was starting to infect him again. “We need to leave!” he shouted, putting his mouth close to Hinata’s ear to be sure. The building was still shaking, and it was difficult to put one foot in front of the other, even. “The mission’s complete, Third.”

Hinata had turned to look at Kunimi over his shoulder—eyes wide, breathless. His lips were split, and blood smeared his clammy skin, just touching him burned _._

Kunimi didn’t repeat himself. Hinata had to be dragged to the exit. He stumbled every third step, and barely kept up, but Kunimi didn’t have the luxury to care. He’d just rounded the corner to the still-broken window and their shuttle. Its door gaped open like a silver mouth in the black space beyond. The ceiling gave in under someone’s weight, raining marble and plaster over half the room. An armored blur dropped through, and just barely missed crushing Kunimi’s head in.

“Neon’s tits,” he swore, and by sheer reflex managed to send Hinata stumbling towards the window. Hoshiumi yanked him in the rest of the way. Kunimi ducked the first swing that came his way, and caught the arm once by the wrist and second by the elbow, and dropping his weight hard to send his attacker flying. The end result was not nearly as satisfying as he hoped it would be. First, owing cause to the fact that it was, _“Ushijima?”_ Kunimi said.

The premiere first of the war-class directive Violet Palace got to his feet, shaking marble dust out of his hair. Ushijima was a juggernaut of a fighter, and it showed in his bloody fists when he raised them to unsheathe his cross-spears. “Lieutenant,” he said.

Kunimi inclined his head quietly. “High General.”

“I was hoping not to find you here.”

“I can’t I that I was expecting it either.”

“What is he to you?” Ushijima asked. “To have made you this way?”

The floor roiled like water beneath their feet, but Kunimi didn’t look away. He could hear Tsukishima saying something to Hoshiumi in the ship, something about coordinates. Something about Kenma.

“He didn’t make me into anything,” Kunimi said.

“But you choose the traitor, still, knowing what he’s done.” The words were only a little sad when he spoke them aloud. Ushijima had braced himself well, but Kunimi still saw through it. Something bruised beneath his eyes, touched the corners of his mouth like a brush, and softened with grief. “And leave Blue Castle to die?”

Kunimi lowered his knives and squeezed out a smile, tired as it was. “It’s only ever been war, General. I thought you would know that better than I.” His throat wanted to close in on itself. He saw in his mind’s eye: Bokuto, so low and trodden in that gray hall, clinging like a ghost to Akaashi’s robes. “I couldn’t save them then. There’s only one left to me now.”

Ushijima lowered his hands too. Kunimi could see, even across the room, the fists of his heart, that guilt which still clung to the dismal spine of him.

“I am sorry to be such a peril,” Kunimi said, when Ushijima’s reply was unforthcoming. It was not habit to think of the bigger picture for them. “One too many chances at freedom ruins a soldier, I suppose.”

Ushijima was silent for a while. He seemed to be deciding something. Then he raised a hand to his ear, activated his transmitter. Said: “All units return to base.” Kunimi’s eyes widened. “That is an order.”

Ushijima dropped his hand back to his side. Looked at Kunimi, who was still too shocked to put a good word in his mouth. Then: “Were you with your commander when he died?” he asked.

Kunimi looked at him, confused. “I was.”

“What happened?” Ushijima asked.

He paused to consider his next words. He didn’t know if there was anything kind for him to say about it. “He was struck by debris and bled out before I could cauterize the wound.” Ushijima didn’t react. “But I stayed until the end. I wanted to make sure that he—” Kunimi cleared his throat. “I mean. That he wasn’t alone.”

“Did he say anything to you?”

“He told me that I had to live.”

There was another sound then—a cracking, burning, hating one. The sound of a heart breaking.

“I see,” Ushijima said softly. He did not move, not even to breathe. “Thank you, Lieutenant,” he said. His head was bowed only a little. “You should go.”

##  **III. The Sixth Star**

He did not remember what it was, where he lay. His head pounded from detox, and his ears were so filled with the muffled drum of his heartbeat that he could barely make out the other voices that strained to fill his periphery.

It was not uncommon for Kageyama to find himself passed out in medical after a beating. Not that the beatings were hard, just that his body was weak, and it didn’t take much for him to be on the conscious outs; who it was that dragged him all the way to the other side of the ship, he didn’t want to think about. He’d owe them, especially if they came forward with the favor. And Kageyama hated owing people things.

“…and I’m telling you that we needed him _two hours ago_ , Tooru,” Iwaizumi was saying. His voice was a warbled and pale imitation of what it had been when he was alive. Kageyama screwed his eyes shut. He didn’t want to think about it. “You’re always on his case about protocol, but you know, missing your unit architect is…”

Kageyama sucked in a breath and choked. He coughed hard, felt the pain of it travel from his skullbone to his toes. Someone shoved fingers down his throat, dislodging bloody phlegm, which he then vomited ungracefully into a wastebin. Then the conversation, which had blurred to a white noise, returned in full technicolor. 

“…so hard to look at him the same way,” Oikawa said. “You know if I ever touched him in the past, he would’ve been able to disengage in two and a half moves, Hajime?” Rustling, like he’d sat down. “All that time in Neon, and everyone’s thinking he’s secretly turned traitor—don’t look at me like that, I think the theory’s _entirely_ untenable too—so they want me to force him out of deep cover, but honestly I…”

Fingers to his cheek. Someone pulled up his eyelid, flashed a penlight across his vision. Kageyama struggled to turn away. _Stop looking,_ he wanted to say, but couldn’t. He often wished to become so small he could disappear entirely.

“…wish there was something more we could do,” Iwaizumi said. He seemed very weary. Kageyama was sorry about it—being unable to let them go after all that. “It’s not sustainable, you know? And even if he hadn’t defected, I feel like this is a great way to get him started.”

Someone was stroking his cheek with the back of their hand. Their touch was light and cool and knowing.

“—hear me Tobio?” they asked. Kageyama gurgled, the only reply he could manage. “—need you—just one more—please—”

Kageyama was back on his feet after his second wake, squirreled away in the darker corners trying to avoid confrontation. The others came and disturbed him occasionally, Kunimi didn’t disturb him at all, but the ghosts wouldn’t leave him alone. Kageyama couldn’t sleep without hearing their voices. When he opened his tired eyes, the world blurred excepting them: those faces lashed with hostility, and some others that affected sympathy, or that odd mix of both that lined Oikawa’s ageless face. Kageyama would clamp hands over his ears to block out the noise, and though it helped, it was not an enduring solution; eventually he would try screaming to drown the others out. It exhausted him too quickly to be of good use.

Kageyama picked up on his work to try to distract himself from the building tension—its cold and hyponychium presence—as the Kunimi in the room that went unaddressed.

It came to a head some half-myriad later. Kenma had called for a convocation, which Kageyama was duly informed of by way of another one of Tsukishima’s scathing announcements, and so he’d packed it up at lab before dragging his unwilling meat down three separate corridors to join the others in the meeting room.

Heads turned as Kageyama came in. Kenma sat at the far end of the room—to his left Akaashi, and to his right, the usual empty seat. The Miya’s bracketed their leader, Kita, who wore only the top half of his mask out of courtesy. Hinata by Atsumu, Kunimi by Hinata, who was already slumped in his seat like a Federation meeting. He glanced up when Kageyama circled around the table.

“Sorry I am late,” he muttered (perfunctorily, because he was always late), and sat.

Kenma waved off the apology. “Shall we begin?” he asked.

Kita smiled. “Please,” he said.

From what Kageyama knew, this meeting was to be the first of many regarding Inari’s affiliate operations with the Stars. Now that Akaashi had joined them full time, Kageyama had very little reason to pay attention—he was architect-engineer, not architect-scholar—fisting his hands together in his lap to try and ignore the way Oikawa watched him from across the room. Iwaizumi hovered just behind Akaashi’s shoulder, talking with Kindaichi. They spoke in dulcet tones, but their voices still grated.

Kageyama watched Hinata light a cigarette out of the corner of his eye. He did it neat, with a flick of two fingers, slumping backwards into his chair on his first exhale. It might have been, in part, the lights, but he looked tired. Hoshiumi looked tired too. He lifted the Third’s hand up wholesale to sneak in a drag of his own. By example, Kunimi slipped his pack from the pocket of his coat and muttered, “Excuse me,” and Hinata turned and lit his cigarette too. Kageyama tried not to stare. It was very hard. Kunimi spent a significant amount of time with his cheeks hollowed around a mouthful of smoke, and wet his lips often. And he sat there with his dark hair and blasé smile, mean about it.

Kunimi’s eyes slid sideways and met Kageyama’s. His gaze was glacial, but when he raised an eyebrow, Kageyama startled and dropped his gaze. But he wasn’t quick enough to miss the way Kunimi’s mouth twitched upwards, and his eyes slitted with animal pleasure. Kageyama hoped then it was maybe that empty amusement, but when he turned his attention back to the front again, Kunimi put his cigarette back to his lips, still smirking, and it was all Kageyama could do to clench his fingers so tight together in his lap his bones creaked.

There was a rushing in his ears. As if in response, Oikawa had peeled himself off the wall, coming round to put a cold hand to his shoulder. They’d never interacted directly before, but the touch set every one of Kageyama’s nerve endings on fire, strobed the lights, made it feel like someone was picking at his skull with a hammer. His throat closed quick, and he coughed to cover the noise. Had he been paying more attention, he would’ve noticed Kunimi’s face freeze, would’ve seen him put his cigarette out in the marble ashtray. 

Something hot was dripping down Kageyama’s chin, but he couldn’t tell if it was real or imagined. He tried to move his hand and check, but Oikawa reached out and covered it with his own, all the scars of his office still there and starkly visible. People spoke in his periphery; it was hard not to respond. Kageyama had already been caught once conversing with the ghosts, and he hated the look it would put on the Lord’s face when he realized that it was just the sickness again, so he worked out the tension in his knees and fists instead: pressing them together bone to bone while the phantom chill of Oikawa’s fingers seeped through his coat.

Someone put their hand to the inside of his wrist. Kageyama saw it as if through sleep, and his vision blurred with noise and heat. “Tobio?” they said.

It took great effort for Kageyama to lift his head. Kunimi took his cheek in one hand, and fished for a handkerchief with another, pressing it to Kageyama’s nose to stopper the blood that had started to leak out of it. “Kozume was talking to you.”

The hollows of Kenma’s face were an inscrutable as ever when Kageyama looked over at him, but he didn’t seem offended at the interruption. “It’s alright,” Kenma said, when his architect stuttered an apology. “We were just discussing your commission for Inari.”

Feeling himself under assessment, Kageyama took the handkerchief carefully from his nose. He glanced at the foxes across the table, and found Atsumu’s eyes pinned to his face. The bleeding seemed to have stopped since. “Oh, ye—s, the blueforms are,” he fumbled to put the words in the right order. “Under progress.”

Kita said mildly, without looking up from his papers: “There’s no need for you to rush the order,” he said. “We can adjust the return date, Kozume.”

Kageyama sat up straighter in his chair, he clenched his crooked fingers together in his lap. “No, I can—”

Kunimi caught his shoulder. He froze, and the conversation between the others continued over both their heads. Kageyama, unable to find another outlet for his humiliation, glared, hot all over with shame. But Kunimi’s eyes were knowing, and cut; eventually he looked away, back to the hands in his lap—chapped from his recent days in lab. The meeting adjourned without him being addressed again. He made it to his feet and avoided the looks sent his way.

Across the room, Atsumu was left talking to Hinata, who had leaned a hip against the table, and smiled occasionally at the way Hoshiumi hovered just behind his shoulder.

“—was difficult because there was the expectation to remove an entire time-frame all at once,” Atsumu was saying. He looked solemn for once. “Of course, I continued with more focus on the faces he’d wanted gone, but the operation was never finished, so I can’t be sure.”

Hinata looked chastised. “I apologize, Atsumu, I didn’t know.”

Atsumu slid him a grin, though there was something subdued about it. “It’s alright, Shouyou-kun,” he said. It might have been Kageyama’s imagination, but Atsumu’s eyes slid briefly towards him. “I just meant that about his health…”

“Well, he _was_ fine until you started messing with his memories again, Miya,” Hoshiumi said, unhappy about it. Kageyama always liked him, for what it was worth, he didn’t think Hoshiumi would be so willing to defend his honor. “You’re getting no apologies from me.”

“He-eey, Kourai, don’t be like that,” Atsumu said. “He practically begged me for it. What was I supposed to do when the kid shows up crying on my doorstep?”

Hoshiumi’s eyebrow twitched. Kunimi got up, his expression frigid. And Kageyama, seeing disaster on the horizon struggled out the door. He made it maybe three corridors before his hip starting hurting again. He slowed to a near stop, clutching his leg and cursing his own ineptitude for speed. He wanted nothing more than to be back in his own room with the door thrice-bolted shut, and huddled in the dim aerie of his bedsheets. Safe. But he was a chased man, and a haunted one too, and knew it was a futile effort even as he rounded the next bend.

“He’s coming,” Oikawa said softly, almost as if he pitied the wreck of Kageyama’s life, and touched two hands to his cheek. Kageyama shuddered. “Be careful, dear. He doesn’t sound happy.”

Oikawa was right. Kunimi could be heard down the corridor. His heels clicked with metrical precision, the cold veneer so representative of his anger, that sudden strength that stopped Kageyama’s arms where they were—raised halfway in defense—Kunimi’s grip bruising around the deformed bones of Kageyama’s wrist, his pathetic transit caught midair, in arrested flight.

“Why?” Kunimi snarled. He was lit from within like a star. This close, his face was all angles and cruel symmetry—that lovely mouth, unyielding, those killer hands and cold touch, his face made acicular by virtue of his peril blacks. Kunimi’s hair fell in a ludic slide across his forehead, made him beautiful even here, on a ship in black orbit. “You tried to _siphon me out of your memories?”_

Kageyama was frozen. He looked to his ghosts for support, but they had since disappeared. His heart pounded sickly in his throat, and his temples throbbed with headache. He didn’t reply. He didn’t know how.

Kunimi took his unresisting body and slammed it hard against the wall. His violence made the floor shake.

Kageyama went cold all over. He was wrong, before. Kunimi wasn’t angry. He was _furious._

“Tobio,” he snapped, pushed up against him until it hurt. “I asked you a question.”

Kageyama’s pulse was thudding with animal terror. Hearing his own voice—everything sounded systems away. “You wouldn’t leave me—alone,” he said, and the words were only half slurred. “I kept seeing you everywhere.”

“So you tried running away instead? Prying me out of your brain?” Kunimi’s face was ugly. He was leaned in so close now. “I thought you would do better than take the coward’s way out.” Kageyama turned his face away, like he’d been struck. “Answer me.”

He couldn’t.

_“Answer me!”_

Kageyama struggled again to get free. “I wasn’t, I wasn’t—” he choked, but he sounded weak and knew it. His head swam, and he squeezed his eyes shut against the vertigo of Kunimi’s presence, his voice, his smell. All these things that had laid some parasite in the pit of Kageyama’s stomach since Kunimi had driven a blade through his heart and lodged a piece of himself inside. And with absence, how it grew, and grew, and grew. “I wasn’t running away.”

“Weren’t you?” He laughed. “Don’t lie to me, Tobio. You’ve never been good at it. When was it you started taking me for an inconvenience?”

Kageyama shook. He couldn’t tell Kunimi about the sleeplessness, but he wouldn’t take no for an answer. “It was just one time,” he said. Kunimi’s mouth twisted. Kageyama didn’t know how to make him _see_. “Why won’t you just let it go?”

“Because you’ve never had the permission,” Kunimi said. “You owe it to the people you’ve killed not to run away.”

Kageyama’s face was hot with frustration. “But you don’t understand!” he said, shrill. He rocked a little, twisted like a thread in Kunimi’s grasp. “Kunimi—Kunimi—they’re always watching me, I can’t—I hear them, they talk to me, _they judge me—”_

“You are a beast, Tobio, of course they’re judging you,” Kunimi snarled. He reached up and cradled the thin, fine bones of his head. “But you think they are better than you? You think they are good?” he asked. Kageyama stared back at him, his eyes rimmed with unnatural blue, old dye leftover from cryo-treatment. The old augury of his second birth.

He was terrified.

Kunimi’s voice softened suddenly. “No way in hell,” he said. “Kageyama, this is _war._ They are in no place to be judging you. You forget that I have your blood on my hands too?”

Kageyama stared at him, his chest blown. He felt Kunimi’s fist in the hollow ship of his ribs, like a heart. He swallowed, trying to wet his throat, but his voice still came out thin and wanting when he said: “But you don’t hate me for it?”

Kunimi slid two fingers under Kageyama’s chin, where it had tipped down in his shame. He was smiling, just a little. “No,” he said, all teeth. “I don’t.”

Then he leaned in and kissed him.

Kageyama froze, and startled when Kunimi bit down hard enough on his bottom lip to draw blood. Kageyama made a pathetic, simpering noise then, and jerked a little in his hold. Kunimi pulled away and snorted, then tipped his head the other way and slotted their mouths together again. He kissed rough, almost until Kageyama couldn’t breathe, choked on the taste of Kunimi and his cigarettes, pulling back with a little spit caught between them, the corner of his mouth pink with welling blood. Kageyama arched up into the hand that slide beneath his shirt, pressed his fingers into the skin there, and shook and shook and couldn’t stop.

Kunimi pulled away first. Kageyama dragged him back. “Don’t,” he said, and even to his own ears it was a begging sound. “Don’t—go—”

Kunimi laughed. “So he wants me now?” he asked, holding Kageyama by the chin. He pried his lips open with two fingers. Spat in his mouth. Kageyama coughed, struggled, felt something wet slip down his chin. Heat shot like a bolt through his stomach. “I wish you would take more pride in your killings, Tobio,” Kunimi pulled hard at his hair, made him look up. Blood smeared both their mouths like a covenant; Kageyama looked so beautiful like this, he thought. “I chose you for a reason, you know.”

Kunimi slid a hand between his legs. He was pleased to find Kageyama hard, gasping. A moan slipped his mouth. Kunimi pressed closer, ducked his head until he was speaking directly into his ear. “Your mistake to think that you could run from me,” he said. His hand worked at the front of Kageyama’s pants, hard enough to hurt. The boy’s hips jerked and stuttered in response. “I’ll haunt you until both our ghosts are gone.”

Kageyama choked a little on his own spit. He felt pyretic—cloyed with heat. Kunimi licked the shell of Kageyama’s ear, crooning, each word scored like a lash: “My sweet monster,” he said. Kageyama’s vision blurred dangerously. “Oh, my pretty little beast.”

The scar was smaller than his other ones. Kunimi affected cleanliness when he could. His blade had been sharp to the honing point when he’d driven it hard through the slats of Kageyama’s ribs, and the wound had healed almost completely by now, only a thin line of pink neoskin as an indicative leftover.

Kunimi ran his fingers down the ridge of Kageyama’s spine. He thumbed lightly at the raised pucker of the scar, expression complicated. Kageyama shivered, and shivered again when Kunimi leaned down to press his lips to the wound.

“I’ll have to make up for that one, won’t I?” he murmured. He reached up, tugged at Kageyama’s hair a little. They were not, after all, the kind of people who invested in apologies. “It heal okay?”

Kageyama made a noise that could be considered approval. His hands fisted in the sheets. He kept trying to get away—making these little aborted attempts at movement, but one glance over the shoulder into Kunimi’s face froze him like an animal in spotlights, made his heartbeat swell and rush, frenzied, in his ears.

He was halfway naked. Kunimi stood above him, in full military regalia. He didn’t like to get his hands dirty, so he was still wearing his gloves, toying with a knife as he considered where next to cut. Kageyama’s shirt was balled in two halves on the floor of his room along with his piecemeal trousers. All that was left between himself and Kunimi were his underclothes.

“Turn over,” Kunimi said. Kageyama obeyed, scrambling gracelessly onto his back. Kunimi dragged his eyes in lines down all his unlovely limbs, and the scars that crisscrossed his papery body. Kageyama had none of Kunimi’s killer grace or easy beauty, and that made him self-conscious. Still, Kunimi never seemed to mind. He flipped his knife over in his hand, and pressed a hand to Kageyama’s chest to keep him still.

The knife was cold against Kageyama’s skin. He shivered, unable to stop it, and his cock jumped against his stomach when Kunimi pressed the flat of his blade against its underside. Kageyama gasped, and squirmed, only to find Kunimi’s hand around his throat for the trouble. He squeezed hard enough that he saw stars, until letting go meant that he could do nothing but lie there limp and spent, until Kunimi could fist a hand over his shaft and make a mess of precome on Kageyama’s stomach.

Kunimi laughed at him, and slipped his knife back into his jacket.

Sex with Kageyama was not always a methodological thing. Kunimi felt a bit like losing control now, if he was honest. He’d had a fair share of partners after Kageyama had been outed, but Tobio himself likely had none, judging by the way he twitched under Kunimi’s touch, shaking from head to toe. He’d been quick to come once Kunimi got fingers in him, dripping slick and lube down the inside of his thighs.

“What, already?” Kunimi said. Kageyama went an alarming shade of red. Kunimi clicked his tongue, but didn’t reprimand him otherwise. He stripped his shoes and jacket, and shoved his pants down to his ankles. “Get over here, Tobio.”

Kageyama shivered. Crawled closer. Kunimi’s gaze was piercing from this distance, and the look in his eyes was predatory and cold. He leaned down and caught Kageyama in another kiss, hand fisted in his hair.

He must have said something, told Kunimi that it hurt, because the next thing he knew, Kunimi was leaned down over him again where he stood by the bed, a hand clamped hard around Kageyama’s throat. It shocked a whimper out of him, that sight—Kunimi with his mussed hair and dark eyes and swollen lips. His gun was holstered in one of those unnecessarily erotic displays of leather, and almost as if Kunimi had sensed Kageyama thinking about it, reached over and freed his pistol with a snap.

Kageyama didn’t even have the time to protest before Kunimi had shoved his head back against the pillows, his hand spanning his jaw as he shoved the barrel past his lips. He fucked Kageyama’s mouth with it until spit leaked from his lips and pooled against the bedsheets, until his chest heaved with shallow, aborted breaths, until his vision went blurry and the fluttering of nerves in his stomach had died out, and he gave himself in trust to Kunimi’s hands, startlingly gentle now, his fingers stroking softly the skin of his cheek.

“Can I fuck you?” Kunimi asked. One hand was curled around Kageyama’s cock, the other tossed his handgun aside. “Is it too much?”

Kageyama nodded. He wasn’t going to die without Kunimi’s dick going in him one more time. “I can take it,” he said, dragging him down for another kiss. Kunimi’s cock pressed in a hard line against his. “Anything you give me,” he said, hoarse. It was strange to have seen Kunimi’ ghost for so long, and now to have the heat of him pressed so close—cheek to cheek. “I can take it.”

Kageyama woke Kunimi gently. It was a bit of a sight to witness him kneeling on the bedspread still half dressed, and his hair in every direction. It made Kunimi fond in ways he didn’t particularly want to think about. “What is it?” he muttered.

Kageyama’s eyes were fixed on him, cheeks just a little pink. “Tsukki says there’s a meeting soon.”

Kunimi groaned, then acquiesced. “Alright,” he said, and sopped out of bed. He went on a hunt for his shirt. “Tsukishima say what it was about?”

“Regarding your current offer of temporary office,” Tsukishima said, startling them both. Kunimi didn’t bother with a reaction, but Kageyama had fallen over where he’d been lacing up his shoes. Kunimi surmised that Tsukishima didn’t like to interrupt very often, or at least in a way that wasn’t vindictively amusing. He glared at one of the audio terminals, and went to help Tobio up.

Kageyama spent an unnecessarily amount of time smoothing out Kunimi’s lapels before they made it out the door. Tobio didn’t have anything to say about the three rounds they went last night, which meant that he was probably worried about the meeting. His nerves didn’t otherwise show much, but by virtue of Kunimi being Kunimi, the way Tobio folded his hands in his lap was indication enough of his mood. He seemed to be paying attention to Kozume when he spoke, but it wasn’t until Kunimi covered his hands with one of his own under the table did Kageyama’s stop breathing like someone had their hands around his neck.

Kenma turned to Kunimi then. “There is still a seat at our revel for you,” he said. “Will you join us?”

Kunimi, for his part, wasn’t that concerned. Kageyama had made it fairly clear he didn’t want to be separated, and Kozume was fielding Bokuto without obvious issue anyway. “I’m not eager to leave,” he replied. He didn’t look at Kageyama. “But I’m not particularly eager to join you guys either.”

“Why not?”

Kunimi’s jaw clenched. He wondered if they were going to make him fight this one out too, but Kenma turned his little head in Akaashi’s direction, amused, like he’d been expecting it from the start. “If it’s a blood oath like the Fourth said, this isn’t something I can just back out of when it no longer suits me, right?”

Akaashi said: “That is correct.”

Kunimi opened his mouth to reply, but Kageyama cut him off first. “We need a seventh,” he said quietly. “You won’t consider it?”

“Not that this is really the issue,” he said. “But I’m only counting four of you here.”

“Five, with Tsukishima.”

“He’s an AI.”

“Not entirely.”

Kunimi ground his teeth together. “What do you mean?”

“It means that I was running a mission in the grid when someone tossed my body out the airlock,” Tsukishima said.

“Though this Kei is technically not the original,” Kenma said serenely. He’d tucked his hands into his wide sleeves, and leaned back in his chair. “I bolstered a few of his processor strands when I reuploaded him to our system.”

That didn’t reassure him. “So you’re…what? Waiting to find him some meat and stick him in it?”

Kozume tilted his head. “It’s a little more complicated than that.”

Kunimi rubbed his temple. The only thing that kept him from rejecting Kozume’s offer out of spite was the fact that Kageyama was clinging voluntarily to his hand under the table, and still blinking at him with those damnably pretty eyes.“What do you _mean_ more complicated than that?”

“I mean that his original body is still restorable.”

Kunimi’s complaints ground to a dead halt. _“What?”_

There was a bit of shuffling at the head table. Eventually Hinata picked up the thread of conversation where Kenma had dropped it. “Have you ever heard of the light walkers?” he asked.

Kunimi had, but barely. “I heard they had the ability to travel sub galaxy by walking on light waves, hence the name,” he said. “A more intelligent version of the Ataiore. I remember they were meant to be a member of the Federation, but they were hunted into extinction before the treatise was passed.”

Hinata looked faintly ill. “Yes, well. It turned out that some Federation engineers had discovered that their organic material was particularly compatible with their fusion technology,” he said. “They found that if a walker was kept in permanent light stasis, rewinding the transformation down to the 0.0001th of a second of every 0.0001th of a second—”

 _Shit,_ Kunimi thought. “Then let there be light.”

“Yes. Exactly.”

“So you’re telling me that you all are—Tsukishima is…or his _body,_ rather, is being?”

“Split on the atomic level right now to power one of your precious warships. I don’t doubt that there are other siblings who’ve met the same fate.”

Kunimi understood now, why the Federation was so hell bent on keeping Kageyama alive. All those restorations—military genius aside—and that mess with his vital suspension.

“So at Black Water, they were…?” he asked. Kageyama tried to tug his hand away. Kunimi refused. “With Tobio?

Across the table, Kozume looked so incredibly old, and so incredibly sad.

“Yes,” he said.

Kunimi had never thought to ask, but in light form, some of the Old Walkers were postulated to have lived thousands of planet years, millions, even. Is that how old Kozume was? To have seen and known this kind of slaughter? To have survived the slow massacre of his people? Looking at him now, it certainly seemed possible. Kunimi pursed his lips. “If I join, I’ll be the seventh of you, but I haven’t seen your First Star, Kozume, or is that title also yours?”

Kenma smiled a little, as if to acknowledge the hit. “No, my First came by the name Tetsuro.” Kozume spoke like he’d been the best of men.

Ah. Kunimi understood. He thought over it a little longer, weighing the costs, and the sudden cold of Tobio’s hand leaving his. He reached into his uniform pocket, thumbed the weight of his rank signet, ignoring the way Kageyama’s eyes shot to his face. He put his seal on the table, flower-face down.

“For your First, then.” What was it Kunimi had said to Ushijima, that last day on Black Water? _I wasn’t made into anything._ “I will ride with you this time.” Kunimi could never call Kenma his Lord, but offered him what pittance he could.

“Thank you,” Kozume said. Kunimi almost turned his face away, discomfited by the acknowledgment. Kenma looked to the others. “We will begin the operation then, now that of us are gathered here.”

Kozume called something up on the scans, what looked like station diagnostics. Kunimi was no architect, and most of the particulars went in one ear and out the other, but he understood enough, of a spectral shift a thousand years in the making to fulfill some ancient law of blood and war, of a shadow meant to be cast in reckoning upon the Federation below.

Of the Hollow Lord Kozume’s Sevenfold Eclipse.

**Author's Note:**

> thank you [elo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fatal) as always for your unfailing support while i cried like a bitch about this piece every night . heres my [twitter](https://twitter.com/gonkisses) that i fail to use effectively . thank you to the locked tomb + machineries of empire series for the lifeline during these trying times . and extra special thank you to my 5 readers for your support .... i love you .....


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